Because my rate of production fluctuates wildly.

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Hi. This is a letter from the future. I’m sorry you’ll never get it, it could have saved you a lot of trouble. Maybe it will help someone else, and that will be enough.

Firstly, people will tell you that look good, and that you don’t look good. They will make fun of your accent or your hair or your jaw or your weight. It’s already started happening, you know what I mean. I’m not going to tell you that you’re this awesome Hollywood-star-looking person, you kind of aren’t, but… that doesn’t actually matter. Looking good is not your job. Looking good has never, and as far as I know will never be your job. You are not on TV frolicking around in the meadows, you are in school. You are there to learn, not to look pretty, and the idea that you are not there exclusively to learn is stupid social crap. So what if someone thinks you look like shit? Are they paying you money to look good? Do you want to have sex with that person? No? Gross? Then it is basically irrelevant. I know you’ve read the articles about appearance and money but you are living in the age of the internet, and it will only get more connected. You can be whoever, whatever you want there.

Secondly, grandma is going to get worse. Try to spend more time enjoying her company. I know it’s already starting, but it’s going to get worse, and she won’t believe you when you say you’re 21. She’ll say you have to be fourteen, right? So, be with her when you’re fourteen. Ask her to teach you how to knit. You’ve always kind of wondered, ever since you realized that every knit garment is literally a very elaborate knot, how that works. Ask her to teach you. You’re going to really regret not having asked before when she can’t teach you anymore. You’re going to miss her a lot.

Thirdly, adults don’t know anything. They say they do, but they really don’t. I know it’s weird to have someone tell you to be MORE of an arrogant teenager, but you need to stop asking adults for help and just read up on it, google it, and do it yourself. Adults are just going to give you stupid information, or roll their eyes at the meagre nature of your problems because they have this weird thing going on where they put young people in a situation where their problems are guaranteed to be in a controlled environment and then for some reason they get mad at them for having problems which fall within this controlled environment, or freak out when they have problems that don’t. Unless the adult has lots of experience IN THAT AREA or has amazed you with their knowledge, assume they don’t actually know.

And stop asking dad to help especially. He doesn’t really know how and he gets all sad and stressed that he’s a bad dad because he is trying very hard but he doesn’t know how to help. I know you feel bad, and you’re going to go to a bunch of doctors and they’re going to be super useless–and you’re going to entertain the notion of Scientology because Scientology is what people try when they’re depressed and psychiatry has failed them–and I’m not going to tell you that it gets better. It gets worse, actually. You start getting suicidal, you become somewhat immunodeficient, you get sick way more often, you’re perpetually getting a bunch of muscle pain from tensing up all the time. It hasn’t gotten better yet. And if you think “well what the fuck, hasn’t it been several years?”…yeah, that’s what I think too.

But you will get a little better at dealing with it. And you have people who love you who will try to help. They won’t be that great at it, but they will try and they will keep trying and that will help more than the actual things they do.

Also don’t move onto the higher dosages for the antidepressants so quick, they make you suicidal. Yes, more suicidal.

Try to eat less crap food, please? I mean come on, I’m dealing with the consequences of your shitty habits still today. It takes forever to undo damage you’ve done in your childhood and teenage years. Do your future self a solid and treat your body better.

Also, everyone is going to forget you. You’ll run into people from high school years later and they will basically give zero fucks. So their opinions are actually meaningless. Not meaningless in the sense of “don’t care about the opinions of others and just be you”. Meaningless in the sense of “they themselves will forget they had those opinions in two years.” So, stop caring, because they certainly don’t now, and won’t later. Their opinions mean nothing.

Of Princesses in Towers
This isn’t actually a fanfic… I think? I don’t know, it kind of skirts the line. But it’s not a book and I have to put it somewhere, so here it goes! It’s a fairy tale deconstruction and reconstruction!

The Saga of Hug Fortress
Read at your peril. It is INCOMPLETE. That is the only real problem I have with this. I WANT MORE AND IT ISN’T COMING. I actually tracked down this writer, and it looks like no more will ever appear >_>.

i’ll make the world (safe and sound for you)
This fanfic got me to read something in third-person present tense, people. This is my second-least favourite typically-used tense for fiction. I mean, I guess Hamilton already made me enjoy rap, so the characters and the ideas clearly have the power to make me less pedantic, but come on! Third-person present tense! (note: It also makes no sense as Hamilton was weirdly gun-happy, but whatever…)

The Dresden Omens
It has a weird ‘ship in the end(though hey, they actually kind of…), but other than that HOLY SHIT THIS IS AMAZING.

Never Quite A Fairytale
…holy shit… I usually don’t like third-person present tense (honestly, while I have read my fair share of present-tense stories, the present tense seems to me to be at best a forgivable flaw and never a virtue), but… wow.

Albus Potter Series
If Fanfics counted as books, I’m pretty sure I would have made my 50 books a year challenge without an issue. Honestly, the Albus Potter series isn’t actually that good (great character writing, kind of shitty plotting and worldbuilding), but it’s better than what they did roll out for the “8th book”… (seriously the headmaster makes no sense).